Ebola could be curable, clinical trial in the Congo shows for the first time

In this photo taken on Saturday, July 13, 2019, a nurse vaccinates a child against Ebola in Beni, Congo DRC. The World Health Organization has declared the Ebola outbreak an international emergency after spreading to eastern Congo's biggest city, Goma, this week.(Photo: Jerome Delay, AP)

The preliminary results of a clinical trial using drugs to treat Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo have been promising enough to stop the trial and prioritize their use instead.

Monitors reviewed how the first several hundred patients in the study were faring on Friday.

Ebola has killed more than 1,800 people in the Congo since last year. While there is an effective, but experimental, vaccine against Ebola, there hadn't been any studies to show what kind of treatments were most successful after infection.

The drugs were most effective when used as treatments for patients with low levels of Ebola in the bloodstream, according to the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

Of the four drugs tested in the clinical trial, one of the most successful was developed by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and the other by the National Institute of Health. Both drugs use antibodies to block the virus.

The results are preliminary, said Anthony Fauci, a director with the National Institute of Health. About 30% people died if given the NIH or Regeneron drug, but when patients received treatment early, mortality was 6% with Regeneron and 11% with the NIH drug.

Another experimental drug called ZMapp that was used in the West Africa outbreak several years ago was included in the trial and also showed promise. Nearly half of those receiving that drug still died; the mortality rate was 24% when care was sought out early.

Some patients who had the experimental vaccine originally still became infected, and researchers are still trying to determine whether the earlier vaccination inflated the success rate of the new drugs.

About three-quarters of people who do not receive care for Ebola die, according to Michael Ryan of the World Health Organization.

Sabue Mulangu, who worked on the trial, is an infectious-disease researcher at the DRC National Institute for Biomedical Research. Mulangu told Nature the results are great news.

“Now we will be able to stress to people that more than 90% of people survive if they come into the (Ebola treatment unit) early and get this treatment," Mulangu told Nature.

The trial in the Congo was unprecedented, according to Nature, and tested multiple drugs in a conflict zone.The turmoil meant Ebola responders faced violent attacks that at times forced them to slow their efforts.

Another challenge facing researchers is that many people in the Congo don't believe Ebola is real and stay home instead of seeking care, which causes the virus to spread.

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